Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

Last week we glossed over the long period where Webster compared selections of the Protocols to selections of whatever she could use to show that the world revolution was being controlled by a single entity. She failed in this, but the point was to never create a case—this far in the book, you are buying her story. Her intended audience is not going to fact check her assertions about the other books. She’s been handed a gift in the form of an English translation of the Protocols which not only justifies her anti-Semitism but also her conspiracy. Because the Protocols are too good of evidence she questions their authenticity. This is a good move, a surprising one for her, but I would give her credit if I didn’t suspect that it was disingenuous. A little background for any new readers. This book was published in 1921. The first English version of the Protocols was published in Britian in 1920. While she’s writing this book, the Protocols are going to hit the shops. It had been widely c...

 After learning some Webster’s absolutely deniable opinions, with two basic facts thrown in, she wants us to begin focusing on who the real Illuminati is, “ who are the modern Illuminati, the authors of the plot?” Can you guess? I’ll give you two attempts only because the first one is going to be “isn’t the modern Illuminati the modern Illuminati? No. To find who the modern Illuminati are, we need only look at the Russian revolution. The revolution that three posts ago she said wasn’t worth covering. She characterizes the Russian revolution as having no motive other than a campaign of ceaseless destruction. This motiveless violent revolution has “ led many people to believe in the theory of a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christianity,” and that, “ to the unprejudiced observer Bolshevism in Russia may well appear to be a wholly Jewish movement.” Anti-Semitism was a rife in England during the interwar period. There may have very well been people who blamed the Russian Revolution ...

We’re hitting the final stretch of this book, and I realize with foreboding that I am going to have to find another one to keep going. I can say, without hyperbole, that I have probably read more of these conspiracy books than any other person. Not that I’ve read more conspiracy books, but that I’ve read more of the books. I’m actually reading them page by page and I doubt that anyone else has really done that. So, self-aggrandizement aside, even Webster knows that it’s time to wrap this thing up in a bow. She asks us to ponder the question that if the last 140 years of world history are not being directed by a single power then, “ how are we to account for the following undeniable facts?” Now, the last time she attempted to go line by line she absolutely flubbed it. To her advantage she hasn’t given us a specific number of undeniable facts so she’s learned from her earlier attempt. Her first is that the “ grievances of the people throughout this period have varied according to t...

  Works like this survive on vibes, and one of the vibes that they have to exploit is fear. Most of that fear is about changing the orthodoxy that the reader regards as “the default.” People hate change, especially Americans. An American will brag about surviving suffering rather than every question why they suffered in the first place. When the Communist/Socialists takeover (in Webster’s view these ideologies are the same), one of the cultural institutions that they target are the religious ones. From the perspective of the revolutionaries the reason that this is a necessary step is because religious institutions are part of the problem. The French revolution targeted the Catholic church because the Catholic church, at the time, was part of the oppression of the French peasantry. They not only blessed the Aristocracy they were inextricable from it. The Russian Orthodox church was the same. The Tsarist government was endorsed by the church and benefitted from it. What Webster lik...

We are treated to some long quotes by Lenin, the good one, the one that didn’t beat his wife and kid. The thing about Lenin is that he represents exactly the type of person that people like Webster hated: he was smart, educated, non-religious, anti-Capitalist, and Jewish (ethincally). He’s also quite the character in history. Lenin is the force of the Bolshevik revolution and an idealist willing to execute his position at nearly any cost. It’s hard to argue against Lenin aside from just disagreeing as well. He’s an idealist and moreso a true believer. So what, if anything is Webster going to do with him? Well, she’s going to just use his speeches to prove her point, what’s her point? That Bolshevism then is not Synidcalism, it is state Socialism, it is Marxism, it is Communism, in a word it is Babouvisme.” She’s arguing against something no one is saying. She quotes a twenty-line position of Lenin from one of his writings and then thinks that she’s breaking new ground by telling us t...

This chapter is titled “The Revolution of 1917;”   to which we assume our intrepid author means the Russian Revolution, the final toppling of the Romanov dynasty and the beginning of the USSR. This is the subject of the chapter, so it’s very odd that she writes the following, “ This is no the place to recount the story of the Russian Revolution, which is still too fresh in the minds of the public to need repeating…” If this is the case then why is the chapter titled this way? I have made the observation in my recounting of this book that no one really reads conspiracy books. They read the first chapter, which is also where the author has spent the most time crafting the book. The only reason to include a chapter titled “The Revolution of 1917” and then dismiss any need to actually write about that revolution is so it would seem that she did. If some hapless debunker asks, “well, what does she cover the Bolshevik Revolution?” the conspiracy believer can say, “Why yes, right here i...